Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week in
Ordinary Time
(Deuteronomy 13:1-12; Matthew 18:15-20)
Internet applications like Zoom and
Facetime give the experience of talking to others face-to-face without actually
being in their presence. However marvelous such conversations may be, they are
hardly as intimate as being in one another’s physical presence. In fact, one of the current issues in prison
reform is assuring that prisoners have direct, not electronic, access to
visitors. In the first reading today, Moses is exulted for having known the
Lord “face to face.” But what do these words mean and how do they align with Christian
belief that only Christ has seen the Father?
Various interpretations for knowing God “face
to face” are given. Some say they do not
indicate a direct encounter with the Lord because in the Book of Exodus God
tells Moses that “’no one shall see me and live’” (33:20). Of course, there is also the very real
question of God, a purely spiritual being, having a material face. It may be best to conclude that Moses enjoyed
a spiritual intimacy with God like no one else before the writing of the Book
of Deuteronomy.
At one point in Deuteronomy (18:15-18) Moses
himself mentions another prophet who will come after him. This prophet will have God’s words in his
mouth and bring a definitive revelation of God’s will. We find fulfillment of this prophecy in Jesus
Christ. The Gospel of John quotes him as
saying, at least indirectly, that he has seen the Father: “’Not that anyone has
seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father’”
(6:46). His seeing of the Father
constitutes a knowing that goes beyond Moses’ spiritual intimacy. It is a divine indwelling whereby as Jesus
again says in John: “(He) and the Father are one’” (10:30). An approximation of this indwelling with its
accompanying knowledge of God is Jesus promises to his followers of Jesus in
the beatitudes. We says, “’Blessed are
the clean of heart for they shall see God’” (Matthew 5:8).
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